


A Tale of Two Dresses

by Happy9450



Category: The Newsroom (US TV)
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-01-03
Updated: 2015-01-03
Packaged: 2018-03-05 05:16:18
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,791
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3107531
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Happy9450/pseuds/Happy9450
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>“You still have this dress?”</p><p>“Well, of course,” MacKenzie replied, perplexed by the question and looking at the extremely expensive, couturier-designed black gown that Will had taken from her closet.  “Do you have any idea what that dress cost?”</p><p>“I have some idea what it cost me, but no, I couldn't guess the price.”  He sat down on the bed.</p><p>“What do you mean . . . what it cost you?”</p><p>"Do you have any concept of how good you looked in this dress that night?”</p>
    </blockquote>





	A Tale of Two Dresses

**Author's Note:**

> “You still have this dress?”
> 
> “Well, of course,” MacKenzie replied, perplexed by the question and looking at the extremely expensive, couturier-designed black gown that Will had taken from her closet. “Do you have any idea what that dress cost?”
> 
> “I have some idea what it cost me, but no, I couldn't guess the price.” He sat down on the bed.
> 
> “What do you mean . . . what it cost you?”
> 
> "Do you have any concept of how good you looked in this dress that night?”

New Year’s Eve 2013-2014

“I think I'll just lie here naked until I go into labor,” Mac moaned. Now in her ninth month of pregnancy, the President of Atlantis Cable News and wife of its most famous newscaster looked like a woman who had suffered a high-speed collision with a beach ball. It was 6:30 in the evening, and she had showered, toweled off and collapsed onto her left side, pulling the comforter up on the king sized bed in the master bedroom of the lovely old penthouse apartment that she shared with her husband. Said husband had just emerged from the adjoining bathroom carrying a tub of pure organic Shea butter that he had ordered from somewhere on the Internet. It was a Tuesday, but since it was New Year’s Eve and “Right Now” was going to be the preempted by coverage of New Year’s celebrations in Europe and New York, Elliott, Don and Jim had given Will the gift of a night off and taken over the evening’s broadcast of “News Night.” He sat down beside his wife and began rubbing the Shea butter into her swollen belly. 

“Oh, God, that feels good,” she sighed, closing her eyes, and letting her breathing relax into a slow rhythm. After only a few minutes, however, her euphoria ended as the massage sent her daughter into action. “Jeez! She’s kicking or punching . . . No I think it's a foot . . . Can you feel if it's a foot? . . . Oh, God . . . She's after my bladder again!” 

Will brought his head down and placed a kiss on his wife's exposed skin. “Charlie, this is Daddy. Please give Mummy a break and don't kick her bladder.” Miraculously, the foot moved up to a spot where it's motion produced less discomfort. 

“Well, I'll be damned,” MacKenzie breathed. “How did you do that?”

“Magic.” Will smiled. “This stuff is pretty amazing too,” he continued, resuming the application of the Shea butter in rhythmic circles. You have hardly any stretch marks.” He had bought the cream after researching the best means of relieving Mac’s discomfort from the pressure their growing offspring was putting on the scar tissue from her knife wound. But he hated to talk about the stabbing. It reminded him too much of how he had nearly irrevocably screwed up their lives and what his actions had cost his wife. Mac had no such inhibitions.

“I don't understand your obsession with preventing stretch marks when I have a massive scar that was big enough to begin with and is now four times the size it used to be. I can't imagine it will ever go back to being just the puckered ugly gash that it was, and considering that it pretty effectively ended my bikini days all on its own, nobody’s ever going to be able to appreciate my un-stretch marked body anyway.” He simply smiled and placed another kiss on her abdomen. 

The last ultrasound had put the baby's weight at about eight pounds give or take an ounce or two. MacKenzie had always been aware that the length of her legs accounted for a good deal of her height, but for these last few weeks, she'd felt like her torso was far too small for the job it was doing and that her entire body was being occupied by an alien being intent on pressing her stomach up into her lungs while simultaneously crushing her bladder. “I think . . . I think,” she gasped, “I think she turning a somersault.”

“I suspect that’s impossible this late in the game,” Will replied.

“No, it's not. Catherine said that they can turn completely around within days of delivery. And I've still got almost three weeks to go.” Mac’s voice came out in something of a whine. “Oh, God! How much bigger can she get in three more weeks? Why on earth did I choose to procreate with a man who is enormous? Surely, I could have fallen in love with someone smaller.”

“I'm not enormous.”

“You are. You absolutely are. Everything about you is huge . . . your hands, your feet . . . “

“Everything?” Will interrupted.

“That too . . . and you can wipe the simpering smirk off your face.”

He nuzzled her neck and whispered, “I'd ask you if you’d like to take some measurements, but I need to shower, and we need to get dressed or we’ll be late for the party.”

Now MacKenzie really did moan. “Do I absolutely have to go?”

“The New Year’s bash is an ACN tradition and its your first year as President. Besides, you can't leave Pruit to play king all on his own.” He kissed her again. “We don't have to stay till midnight given your delicate condition but . . . as Director of Morale, it's my considered opinion that . . .yeah, you need to make an appearance. Everyone who’s anyone will be there.”

“Nina?” Mac asked before she could stop herself.

“I doubt it. Unless she’s Pruit’s date.”

Mac’s eyes grew large with concern. “Do you think that's possible?”

“Not likely. She's a little old for the Boy Wonder,” Will said, standing up and walking into Mac’s closet.

“Yes, I suppose,” she agreed. Then looking up, an expression of fresh horror crossed her face. “Whatever am I going to wear?”

“I don't suppose this dress is in the cards,” Will said emerging from the closet carrying the slender black dress that MacKenzie had worn twice before on New Year’s Eve, once at her first New Year’s Eve at ACN, the year she'd brought Wade Campbell as her date, the year Nina had thrown champagne in Will's face, and once again the year before this, on their first New Year’s Eve as an engaged couple, after Will had confessed that the memory of her body in that dress had tormented him for two years. 

She laughed. “I don't suppose that any dress is in the cards. Seriously, Will, maybe I should just pull on some sweats and screw it all,” she said as he disappeared into the closet once again. 

"How about this one?” he asked reemerging holding a champagne colored gown that she had never seen before. The fabric forming the shoulders crossed in the front in the identical pattern as the black dress but this one was roughly the color of her wedding dress and was clearly made to accommodate her present figure. 

“What? Where?” MacKenzie stammered. “Where did that come from?”

“Your closet, obviously.”

“But how did it get into my closet?”

“Magic.” Will smiled again. 

 

New Year’s Eve 2012-2013

“You still have this dress?”

“Well, of course,” MacKenzie replied, perplexed by the question and looking at the extremely expensive, couturier-designed black gown that Will had taken from her closet. “Do you have any idea what that dress cost?”

“I have some idea what it cost me, but no, I couldn't guess the price.” He sat down on the bed.

“What do you mean . . . what it cost you?”

"Do you have any concept of how good you looked in this dress that night?” Before she could answer, Will asked another question. “Why did you bring Wade to the studio on New Year’s Eve?” She could see the hurt in his eyes and hear the slightly accusatory tone that had crept into Will’s voice.

She sighed and sat down beside him. They had been engaged for approximately two months. Two months during which they had been living together in her apartment while they found a place of their own because since the night of Will’s proposal, neither could bear to sleep apart. The place of their own turned out to be a lovely old penthouse in an upper East Side co-op. It would be theirs in a few days. Mac looked at Will’s face and noted the ropes of muscle that were being produced by his clenched jaw as he continued to stare at the dress. Given the amount of baggage that they were each dragging into this marriage, MacKenzie thought that it was a miracle that there weren't more of these painful conversations. Nina, Wade, Brian. So many hurts, so many tears, so much pain. Strange, but despite it all, it never occurred to either of them that the marriage would fail. They owned each other. They always had and always would. 

“It was New Year’s. It was a party. I was dating him.”

“Why?”

“Why? Why?” Mac asked, her voice incredulous. “I told you why at the time. You didn't want me. You had made it clear that you were never going to forgive me for Brian. I had spent three years punishing myself for hurting you and almost another year letting you punish me. I wanted a life. I wanted someone I could care about who would love me back for a change.” She looked at him, daring him to make her wrong. He looked away and then down at the dress that he held in his hands. “Besides,” she continued, her voice falling almost to a whisper, “everyone told me that you never showed up at any office parties, especially on New Year’s Eve.”

“I came because I thought . . . hoped . . . that you would be there.” Mac shook her head sadly. 

"You looked so beautiful in this dress. I wanted to touch you more than . . . . Instead, I had to watch him touching you.” She could feel him re-experiencing the frustration. Then, his voice softened, “I almost . . . when you were in my office and we were alone . . . when you were telling me to come out and join the party . . . .” Will let his voice trail off and shrugged his shoulders, looking again at the black fabric in his hands. Mac said nothing. After a moment, he began speaking again. “I hurt so much . . . the thought of you with him tore at me like a wild animal. I knew that no matter what I said, you were going to walk out the door and back to Wade . . . to your lover. I just closed my eyes and tried to keep breathing . . . but every breath was like a razor slicing my insides to ribbons.”

MacKenzie knew it was true, that every word he spoke was the truth as he had experienced it. Nonetheless, the insanity of his not knowing that she had belonged to him from the moment she'd walked into the ACN bull pen sometimes made her crazy. “Well, if you’d opened your eyes you would have seen that all I wanted was the least little sign from you,” she said, “ . . . the thinnest reed of hope . . . that maybe you could come to love me again . . . If you’d shown me that there was even a ray of hope that you could come to feel for me just one small fraction of what I felt for you, I'd have thrown myself at you. The last thing I wanted was to walk out of that door and back to Wade. Jesus, Billy! How were you the only person who didn't see me walking around all the time with my guts hanging out . . . scrambling for the slightest crumb of kindness you tossed my way?”

He didn't answer her. He just kept talking as if he hadn't heard the question. “When I went home, I couldn't sleep . . . .”

“I thought that you picked up that little AP from dayside,” Mac interrupted, “after your attempt to pick up Nina ended with champagne in your face . . . can't remember her name . . . Whatever . . . I thought you took her home.” It surprised him for a second that she'd noticed. But, of course, she'd noticed.

“Cindy,” he replied mechanically, “ Cindy de Vries. Mercifully, I spared us both the disaster that would have been. I dropped her at her apartment and went home alone. Nothing helped that night . . . booze, cigarettes, marihuana . . . I kept seeing Wade undressing you . . . taking this dress off of you and . . . .” He didn't see Mac shaking her head or notice the sad, ironic smile that came to her lips. “I stood freezing on the terrace, at the railing for a long time and thought that if I just leaned over far enough and flew, flew away, it would make the visions stop . . . make the longing for you end . . . .” His voice had taken on a far away quality.

“Billy! Billy!” There was concern and horror in her voice and she clutched him as though he might tumble from the edge of the bed to his death. “Do you want me to get rid of the dress? I will. Nothing is worth . . . .” 

She looked at him and then at the dress. “But you should know that Wade never . . . That night . . . New Year’s Eve . . . I couldn't make myself let him touch me. I told Wade that I was ill and took a cab here . . . alone.” She almost told him what had happened next, the tears, followed by a fitful sleep, still in the dress, the nightmares, then the PTSD attack, and Jim’s pre-dawn rescue mission. She decided not to say that it was Jim who’d had the honor of unzipping the dress that New Year’s. Not exactly what Will had been fantasizing. God, she loved the way Will unzipped a dress. It was unspeakably arousing. 

Instead, she said, “I think that’s when Wade wised up as to how I was using him . . . Oh, I was using him,” she said emphatically when Will glanced up at her, ready to argue the point, “I was faking his reality, and the fact that I might have had a desperate wish to fake my own reality as well doesn't make it any prettier.” She paused. Will said nothing, only looked at her as if she were some sort of miracle, and truth be told, he often found MacKenzie’s unflinching commitment to honesty nothing short of amazing. “Deciding to use me rather than walk away when he figured out that I was hopelessly in love with you makes him a cad, but it doesn't mean I didn't deserve exactly what I got from Mr. Campbell.” 

“That is certainly how the Ambassador would see it.”

“That's how it is.”

“I suppose the same could be said of me with Erin Andrews and Sloan’s gun-toting, slightly psychotic friend . . . “

“And the cheerleader,” MacKenzie chimed in, “and . . . was there really ever a neurosurgeon, or something like that?”

“No,” he laughed, “I think I just said that so you’d stop pointing out the fact that, as Charlie put it at the time, the one thing all of those women had in common was that I wouldn't want to spend a daylight hour with any of them.” Then, he sobered, “I suppose that I should also include Nina Howard on the list of those whose reality I faked.” He shook his head ruefully, “although Nina put herself in that position since she knew better than to believe me.”

“Excuse me?”

“Nina had what no one else had . . . she’d heard with her own ears, evidence that everything I said to her about being over you was a bald-faced lie.”

MacKenzie said, “how? how?” with much the same expression and in the very same tone with which she'd asked, “what the fuck is happening?” during his bumbling marriage proposal. “How?” she repeated more forcefully, “what evidence did she hear?” 

And he watched it hit her. The lightbulb going on in that powerhouse brain. Mac sucked in a lungful of air, held it, and then slowly expelling it, said calmly, “the voicemail.” He realized what he'd done. This would be the moment in which he would tell her what he had said to her after the bin Ladin broadcast. What would she say when she finally heard the content of the infamous message? What would she think of him? Would she rage at the months and months that she’d begged to know what it said and he had been unwilling to tell her that he loved her, had always loved her and wanted to go on loving her? 

“But . . .” she turned to him, confused, remembering what Nina had said.

“Nina lied to you,” he said simply. 

“How do you know? She told you?” He could hear her losing the battle to keep indignation out of her voice.

Thank God, he could honestly give her the answer that she wanted. “No,” he said. He inhaled. “Actually, Sloan did.” When Mac’s eyebrows shot up, he spoke hurriedly. “A couple of weeks ago, she chided me for torturing you with a stupid, inconsequential voice message by making it seem like you had missed some pivotal declaration of devotion. It became clear what had happened when she told me that you had told her that all I'd said was that you’d done a good job with the broadcast. I asked her how you thought you knew the content of the message and she said that Nina told you.”

“Nina didn't tell me the truth?” Mac asked slowly.

He dropped the dress onto his lap and held both of her hands, and looked into her eyes. “No. As best I can recall, the message went like this, ‘hey, it’s me . . . Will . . . ‘” Mac smiled at the idea that he would identify himself, as if she could ever have forgotten his voice. He smiled back and cleared his throat. “’listen . . . I swear I'm not saying this because I'm high, and if the answer is no, then just do me a favor and don't call me back or bring it up or anything . . . But I have to tell you . . . I mean after tonight . . . I really want to tell you that I’ve never stopped loving you . . . “ Despite her resolve to say nothing that would interrupt, she gasped audibly, and she could hear herself breathing hard. After a second, he continued, “’I love you, MacKenzie. You were spectacular tonight . . . No one else would have believed in me. I want to try . . . I can't see my life without you . . . I love you . . . I'm sorry about all the crap and the women . . . There’s never been anyone but you. Please call me back.'” He paused. “That's it. That's basically what I said. That's the message that you never got.”

Mac felt like her head was spinning. She didn't know what to say, didn't know what she wanted to say. She felt confusion, anger at Nina for lying to her, sympathy that Will’s twisted psyche could have believed that when she didn't respond, she was saying, no, she didn't want him, didn't care that he still loved her . . . Then, she felt consumed by anger and frustration that Will’s twisted psyche could have believed that she didn't care when she didn't respond, and, finally, she felt grief . . . overwhelming sadness for the both of them . . . for the fact that he'd been unable or unwilling to get back in touch with these feelings for another year and a half after he left the message, another year and a half of their lives, wasted. She felt like she should say something, but she simply couldn't put together a coherent thought. She kept ahold of his hands and just looked into his eyes, trying to think of what to say and how to begin to put her emotions into words.

Luckily, she was saved by Will pulling his gaze away to glance at his watch, and then jumping up exclaiming that they'd lost track of the time and the ACN New Year’s Eve Party was about to start. He bent over and retrieved that black dress from where it had tumbled to the floor.

"Here," he said, thrusting the dress and hanger into her hands. “Wear this.”

“Really?” she asked. “You want me to wear this dress?”

"Yes.” He bent over, and placing his hands on her upper arms, raised Mac to a standing position. He covered her mouth with his and kissed her deeply, the kind of kiss that weakened her knees. “Yes. You will look stunning, Mrs. McAvoy. And, then, I want to bring you home and take it off of you.”

 

“What are you looking at?” Don Keefer asked, handing Sloan a glass of champagne, and then standing shoulder to shoulder with her, and staring in the same direction. “It's almost mid-night.” Not much to see, he thought, mostly people partying and Will's office door. 

“I want to see their faces when they come out,” Sloan explained, as if it were the most natural thing in the world.

“When who come out? And come out of where?”

“Will and Mac. They’ve been in his office for . . .” She looked at her watch. “Almost seventeen minutes.”

“You’ve been standing here watching Will’s door for seventeen minutes?” Don asked as if she were crazy.

“Sort of,” Sloan replied defensively. “Did you see what she was wearing? Did you notice how Will couldn't keep his hands off of her?”

“Yeah, saw. It's a gorgeous dress. And, Will can never keep his hands off her. He'd do the whole rundown with Mac on his lap if she'd let him. She's the only one who keeps a sense of decorum around here.”

“Not tonight.”

“Yeah. So, what do you think they’re doing in there?” he asked. Sloan just rolled her eyes at the stupidity of the question. “No,” Don said, shaking his head. “Not Mac. With all of these people here? They live together. They sleep in the same bed. They don't have to sneak off into Will’s bathroom." 

“I know. But it was here that she wore that dress with Wade. I think Will is marking his territory. You know like when a dog pees over a spot where another dog peed to claim the spot with his scent.”

“Well, there’s an attractive image if there ever was one,” Don snorted, continuing to shake his head in disbelief. He adored Sloan Sabbith. She was unlike anyone he'd ever known. He was pretty sure that he wanted to spend the rest of his life with her. But her ability to read people was sometimes . . . Better she should stick to numbers.

However, that night, Sloan wasn't far off. Approximately twenty minutes earlier, when Will returned to her side, Mac had been standing, watching the crowd, and thinking about how Will had always been able to make her ache. It was funny, she thought, for so many years, she had carried around a constant ache that was her longing for Will, or having Will angry and hurt and punishing her, or just having him thirty feet away, but a thousand miles out of reach . . . the ache that had lived behind her eyes, in her throat, in her chest and her stomach. The ache that had ended on Election Night, two months ago. 

Since then, a new kind of ache had taken its place. For the studio, Will had perfected a feather-light touch that sometimes only lasted an instant, a caress on the arm or against her hand in passing, a reassuring touch in the small of the back as they were leaving a room, or when he dared, a stroke on the ass, or leaning in close enough that she could feel his breath on her skin when he told her something in confidence. There were times . . . days . . . more than she cared to admit actually, when the sum of these tiny intimacies made her center ache and moisten and she daydreamed about his touch. This evening was one of those times. This night, this News Year’s Eve, concluding one of the worst years of her life (certainly nothing other than the time immediately after she’d told Will about Brian could contend with the post-Genoa period for that title), wearing the most expensive dress she owned, incredibly and wonderfully, she belonged to Will McAvoy. She wanted nothing more than for Will’s touch to linger and tease, and for those talented fingers to work their magic. She wanted to go home.

Will, though, seemed very much to be ready to stay until midnight. What had she done? Happy at last, the curmudgeon had become the original party animal, hugging and kissing and telling everyone how much he'd appreciated their efforts this past year and how they were all going to survive Genoa and restore ACN’s reputation. 

He'd caught her gaze from across the room, smiled and started walking toward her, stopping only long enough to snag two flutes of champagne from a passing tray. He handed her the glass and clinked his flute to hers. She sipped looking at him over the rim of her glass and giving him the crinkly eyed smile that always reminded him that he had never known love from another human being that could rival Mac’s love for him. His chest swelled and tears stung his eyes. He knew as completely as he did his own name that he was responsible for the advent of Wade Campbell. What did he expect her to have done when he was telling her that he’d obtained the right to terminate her contract at the end of each week and would do so as soon as it was feasible from a PR perspective, when he’d informed her that he was not interested in understanding anything about her time with Brian, and in fact, he was completely disinterested in the entire subject that was MacKenzie McHale? Jesus! He could hardly face the memory of his behavior. And, yet, here she was, the most attractive woman he had ever known, smiling at him and wearing his ring.

Taking another sip of his drink and then putting it down on the nearest horizontal surface, Will grabbed Mac’s wrist and whispered, “Follow me, my love.” He led her into his darkened office, where he turned her in his arms and silently removed the glass of champagne from her hand. Then he kissed her, gently at first, but with increasing urgency, until she started to moan and press herself against him. He leaned down and ran his hand up her leg under her dress. When he discovered that she was wearing silk stockings and the Agent Provocateur garter belt he had bought, covered only by a small lace-trimmed thong, it was his turn to moan. When she didn't stop him as he ran his fingers under the silk and lace to find her hot and wet, he could stand no more. 

Grabbing her around the waist, he walked her into his bathroom and pushed in the button to lock the door behind them. “Will, uh . . . We . . . we . . . shouldn't . . . “ she said while he unzipped her sufficiently to remove one of the shoulders of her dress and expose her breast. Her words morphed into gasps and moans as his lips toyed with her nipple. She didn't speak again until Will had begun to rip her thong after several unsuccessful and increasingly frustrating attempts to slide it off of her legs. “No! Don't! Will! Those knickers cost $200!”

“Remember me,” he said into her throat, “I'm the guy who gave Leona Lansing a million dollars a year in order to entertain the pretense that I could retain control of my life after you walked into the News Night bull pen. What's a couple hundred dollars to a knight errant?” But while he spoke, she smoothly removed the thong and stuffed it into the breast pocket of his tux. The gesture was intoxicating. Holy shit! Mac was going to fuck him in the bathroom in his office with the entire staff, Charlie, Leona and God knew who else out there! This must be a dream! 

There were a couple of tender places on his neck and shoulder, Will discovered as he fixed the top stud in his shirt and prepared to re-tie his tuxedo bow. He vaguely remembered that MacKenzie had sunk her teeth into his flesh several times to keep from screaming as she orgasmed. He looked over at her while she pondered her reflection in the mirror. Her skin was still flushed from arousal and climax, and her lips were red and slightly swollen from use. The extra color made her look spectacular, Will observed.

“Good God, Will! I might as well be wearing a sign that says, ‘Yes, I've just fucked his brains out.’” She whimpered at her reflection. “Maybe we can just stay in here until they’ve all gone for the night. What was I thinking to let you do this to me?”

“Me? It seems like you were doing your part, Ms. McHale. I didn't get the feeling that you were lying there thinking of Queen and country.”

“No? Well, I was. The things I do for that woman!” They both chuckled. Then, he looked into her eyes and for a split second, she thought that he as getting ready to go again. She needed to nip this in the bud. “Don't get any ideas that this is going to get to be a regular thing,” she warned him. “Never again.” She poked a stern finger into his chest. “Do you hear me? Never again.”

“How about just on New Year’s Eve?” he whispered, allowing a childlike wheedle to creep into his voice. “A family holiday tradition for the McAvoy’s.”

"You are an idiot,” she laughed, and then taking his face in her hands, she kissed him passionately. “An idiot whom I love more than my life.” Turning serious, she whispered, “you are my life. Happy New Year, Will.” Then, she released him, paused, and scrutinized her appearance again in the mirror before turning out the bathroom lights.

As they walked toward the office door, Will pressed a kiss into her hair and checked the zipper on her dress. “You look fine, Mac. Beautiful. I’ll bet that no one saw us go into my office, and no one will notice us coming out. Relax.”

 

New Year’s Eve 2013-2014

They made quite an entrance. If a heavily pregnant woman could exude sex appeal, it was MacKenzie, that night, on Will’s arm, in the champagne-colored dress. Crass as it was, Will saw several of the guests pull out cell phones and snap pictures that would shortly be trending on Twitter and Instagram, he assumed. Most people just stopped and stared. Don and Sloan were the first to approach.

Don hugged Mac while Sloan embraced Will. “Mrs. McAvoy,” he said, kissing her cheek. “You look spectacular, Madam President.” She did. The color of the dress made her skin glow in a soft golden tone. It's liquid shape molded to her body in a way that was sexy, but also natural and not overly revealing. “Where did you get this dress?” he asked, holding her now at arm’s length to look at it. “You should have ten children just so you can wear it more.”

She laughed. “Thanks, but, no. I think that two should be plenty. Actually, right now, one feels like plenty.” Almost unconsciously, she put a hand to the small of her back. “And, there are these amazing people called seamstresses who can re-cut dresses so I'm sure that you haven't see the last of this one. Incredible, isn't it? Will had it made. I never saw it before tonight. I actually feel attractive in it, which is a tall order these days.”

About an hour later, Mac was standing by one of the bars, sipping Perrier, and just watching people mill around, nibbling, hugging, and talking. There were so many things about the evening that seemed strange to MacKenzie. Charlie’s absence, and Leona’s. Lucas Pruit’s presence, along with the swarm of his friends and invitees whom she didn't know. Charlotte, Billy’s daughter, squirming inside of her. The fact that Mac no longer worked daily or directly with the News Night staff, and how much they had become Will’s and Jim’s in the six months since . . . Charlie Skinner had fallen to the floor and everything had changed. She enjoyed being President of ACN, but there were times when she felt isolated and alone. Once she had walked from behind her desk and sat in one of the visitor’s chairs she had kept, and pretended that she was in the office waiting for Charlie. Most of the time when she felt like that, felt like crying, she took the elevator to the 44th floor and talked to Leona, who now insisted that “McMac” call her, “Lee.” Leona seemed to have established an open door policy where Mac was concerned, gesturing her in whenever she showed up unannounced. Mac suspected that this change had to do with more than the fact that she was the mother of Leona’s self-proclaimed, “first grandchild.” Yes, things were so different from last year. Stop this, she told herself, as tears stung her eyes. Think about something else.

She looked at Don and Sloan sneaking a kiss in the corner by Will’s office. She thought about last New Year’s Eve, and could feel a blush spreading up her neck. She'd already had to put up with Sloan’s teasing her about it. She didn't think that Will had plans to shag her in the loo again this year, but with him, one never could tell. Her expanding girth had not seemed to put a damper on his libido, and after being assured by Catherine that he couldn't hurt either his wife or daughter, they were still doing some intense lovemaking, although they were pretty much down to only one or two comfortable positions. Charlotte lurched suddenly and Mac wondered just how many hormones these thoughts were pouring into her system. She liked the idea that Charlie would grow up with the awareness that her mother and father shared a passion for each other. She had. Ted and Margaret McHale had never been shameless or crass, but through observing a thousand small touches and gestures, all of the little McHales had come to realize that mummy and daddy were still “doing it.” 

“MacKenzie!” She was startled out of her reverie by Nina Howard approaching the bar, tall, slim, and wearing a form-fitting sheath of mid-night blue satin. Shit! Shit! Shit! Mac smiled brightly, wondering for a second, if Brian Brenner or maybe Wade Campbell were going to turn up too.

“Nina, it's . . . “ Mac swallowed the automatic “good to see you,” substituting a less personal and more authentic greeting. “Happy New Year.”

“Yes, Happy New Year, MacKenzie, or should I call you Mrs. McAvoy?”

“No, MacKenzie will do nicely.”

"Congratulations, MacKenzie, on so many things. The presidency of ACN . . . “ Nina’s voice turned suddenly somber. “I'm sorry about Charlie Skinner. I never really knew him well, but I know you and Will were very close to him.” Mac nodded, and Nina went on more brightly. “Marriage to one of the most respected journalists in the world . . . who would have thought two months in prison could have affected public opinion like that . . . and now, a baby, too. And, you are looking . . . .” Nina paused as if taking in Mac’s figure for the first time.

“Like the side of a house?” Mac suggested, feeling as if she should just get over with whatever gloating the svelte gossip columnist was going to do.

"No," Nina relied slowly. “No . . . Definitely not . . . You look stunning, MacKenzie. More beautiful than I can ever remember . . . and you were a knock out that first New Year’s Eve, too. I hear you have a name picked out for the baby?”

Mac felt her anti-entertainment press radar go up and had to remind herself that she was now in charge of more than one “entertainment news” show herself. “Yes,” she said. “It's . . . she’s a girl. We are naming her Charlotte Elizabeth Morgan, and calling her, Charlie, after . . . well, Charlie Skinner, of course.” The baby’s name hadn't been in the press, or if it had, she hadn't noticed, but it wasn't exactly a trade secret either. 

“That’s a sweet name,” Nina replied, and then added, “and this conversation is off the record,” as if she could read Mac’s mind. “Well, I should find my date . . . “ Nina paused as if deciding whether she was going to say what was on her mind. “I just want to . . . Well, this . . . you look so happy . . . You look like you were born to do this, MacKenzie . . . and maybe you were.”

The compliment sounded so sincere that Mac was taken aback. She said nothing, and simply inclined her head in acknowledgment. 

"I know he was,” Nina said, gesturing over to where Will was engrossed in a discussion with Pruit and two other men whom Mac didn't recognize. “This . . . making a family with you . . . He always protected . . . I'm not saying this well,” Nina conceded when she saw confusion in Mac’s eyes. “Will was the most obsessive man I have ever encountered about contraception . . . I know he's pro-life, so an unwanted pregnancy would be more difficult for him than most, but it was more than that.” She looked pointedly at Mac. “You are the only woman he ever wanted to make the mother of his child, and he was protecting that possibility . . . always. He was unwilling to run any risk that something would happen that would threaten his ability to someday have . . . .” She gestured again at Mac’s body. 

"I'm glad he has it at last,” Nina continued, “You are both now where you should be. I'm happy for you and Will.” She laughed a brittle laugh. “Being dumped unceremoniously in the Green Room of the Morning Show is not an experience that I'm anxious to repeat any time soon . . . but . . . I set myself up for it . . . I let myself fall for a man I knew was in love with another woman.” She looked sheepishly at MacKenzie. “I assume that by now he's told you what the hacked voice message really was.”

“Yes,” Mac replied, almost adding that it had happened last New Year’s Eve, but deciding that this was a bit of trivia that there was no reason to share with Nina Howard. 

"I apologize for lying to you. If it's any comfort, I’ve paid a price for that and for . . . Well, I am sorry.” Nina extended a hand. The gesture was tentative and Mac was slow to react so that Nina had almost started to retract her arm before Mac reached out and grasped Nina’s peace offering. Yes, Mac could see that it was true. It was apparent from Nina’s face that she had paid dearly for her time with Will. Mac felt compassion for her, but it was tempered by the memory of her own terrible despair during those months. 

“Apology accepted,” Mac said simply. Nina smiled silently, and turning, strode away.

Mac walked up to where her husband was standing with a group that now numbered about nine. One of them she recognized as a member of the ACN board of directors, but the others were strangers. She endured Pruit’s introduction of her to his guests, which sounded to her ears, like a synopsis of her Wikipedia page, and included references, among others, to (oh, God, she thought they'd discussed this) her father’s title, the stabbing in Islamabad, and her turn in the presidency of the Cambridge Union (she really didn't mind that one so much).

She wrapped both of her arms through and around one of Will's and tried to focus on the subject matter of the discussion she'd interrupted. But she found it impossible. Now that the adrenaline generated by the encounter with Nina was dissipating, she was conscious of Charlie’s kicks and the parts of her that hurt, her feet and her back, most prominently. 

Aware that she was leaning on him more and more heavily, Will turned to her and whispered, “do you want to sit down?”

“Yes. No. Actually, I want to go home, if that's okay with you.”

"Of course."

It still took them another half hour to say their good-bye’s and extricate themselves from the party. Will’s surprise at coming upon Nina in the process told Mac that he'd been oblivious to her earlier conversation by the bar. That was okay. She'd tell him about it later. 

The year 2014 found the McAvoy’s awake and curled up in post-coital bliss. 

“Happy New Year, Billy,” Mac whispered, when the sound through their window of honking car horns and the clatter of other assorted noisemakers told them that the hour had arrived.

“Happy New Year, Kenz,” Will replied, kissing her hair. “I'm glad it's just the three of us alone together this year.”

“I am too.”

Then, a devilish smile played up the corners of Will’s mouth. “But next year, I'm nailing the President of ACN in my office bathroom right before mid-night. Oh, come on,” he said when she pulled a face, “it's tradition, Lady MacKenzie of Ailesbury . . . God,” Will chuckled, “I thought for a moment there Pruit was going to curtsy. . . and you snobby English types know all about tradition.” She tried to hit him, but he caught her hand and brought it to his lips. “It's a red-blooded American McAvoy family tradition.” 

And so it became.


End file.
